Wireless electric gate motor operates automatic gate at speed up of to 36 meters per minute

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Centurion Systems, a Johannesburg, South Africa-based access automation technology company, has selected Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide the wireless connectivity enabling setup and configuration of its ‘D5 SMART’ electric gate motor. 

The D5 SMART is a 372.5 by 275 by 181mm form factor, domestic and light-industrial motor designed to open and close sliding gates weighing up to 500kg for up to 150 operations per day. The device features a custom gearbox coupled to a powerful 24V DC motor to provide fast and reliable automation for entrances to homes and small industrial or housing estates. D5 SMART enables the gate to reach a top speed of up to 36 meters per minute. The system operates from two 12V batteries continuously charged from a mains-powered switch-mode power supply. By operating directly from the batteries, the system is protected from mains-power interruptions. 

Wireless configuration

Using the Bluetooth LE connectivity provided by the Nordic SoC, a qualified installer or end-user can wirelessly set up and configure the gate motor—including features such as setting the gate limits, speed, automatic closing, and unique profiles for everyone using the gate—with just a few taps from the iOS and Android ‘MyCentsys Pro’ app on a Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone. 

Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC combines a 64MHz, 32-bit Arm® Cortex® M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU), with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5.2, ANT™, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) featuring -96-dB RX sensitivity, with 512kB Flash memory and 64kB RAM. The nRF52832 SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5.2-certified RF software protocol stack for building advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice features Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster and Observer Bluetooth LE roles, and supports up to twenty connections. 

Superior RF performance

“Nordic’s nRF52832 was an ideal choice for D5 Smart because the SoC provides optimal balance in terms of RF performance, Arm processor, and mature software stack, with the price and availability of the product also playing a part in our evaluation criteria,” says Morgan Commerford, Head of Research and Development at Centurion Systems. 

“In addition, we decided to partner with Nordic as the solution provider for D5 Smart because the company offers excellent support throughout the development process. In developing our proprietary application code, we relied extensively on Nordic’s Software Development Kit [SDK].” 

• About Centurion Systems
• About nRF52832
• About Nordic Semiconductor